Free said:
Is anyone here Calvary Chapel? My wife and I have just started attending one and we think it is where we will stay, but I know little of them. They seem to be aligned with the Full Gospel churches.
I used to be Calvary Chapel.
Here is an article I wrote when I left.
Some Reflections on the Calvary Chapel Movement
FOUNDATION Magazine
May-June 2001
A personal, Biblical look at a burgeoning group of churches
offering believers a mixture of truth and error.
by Robert W. Hurzeler
THE FIRST CHURCH my family and I attended after we were saved in 1993 was a small Calvary Chapel in Central Oregon. We still love the people who first discipled us as new believers.
My wife and I had no real background in the doctrines of the faith. We had very little understanding concerning the rapture, the millennial reign of Christ, the gifts of the Spirit or the function of the church in the life of the believer. We were taught many good and sound teachings by our new family in Christ, and I will be forever grateful that God used these folks to help us understand Him and know Him.
However, it is not for the good teachings and sound doctrines we were taught that this article is being written. I write this article not out of malice, but of love. It is my hope that this article will help people who attend Calvary Chapels to see and understand the pervasive and dangerous doctrines within these fellowships and come to a right understanding of what the Scriptures really teach. This article is intended to help Fundamental Bible believers understand the errors of one of the fastest growing and most popular movements in the church today. The problem with Calvary Chapel lies in it's aberrant Charismatic theology and its ecumenical nature.
Aberrant Charismatic Theology
The Calvary Chapel movement promotes and encourages the "line by line, precept by precept" study of the Scriptures. I thank God for that. I first learned to deeply love and appreciate the Word of God at a Calvary Chapel, and I certainly will not fault the movement for its strong emphasis on the Scriptures. The problem, however, is that Calvary Chapels teach the errors of the Charismatic movement. Calvary teaches that the sign and revelatory gifts in the early church are still available today and should be sought and practiced. They teach their followers to seek what Charismatics call the "baptism of the Holy Spirit." According to Calvary doctrine, this baptism is a second baptism which comes upon the believer subsequent to his salvation.
Any teaching that is contrary to the teachings of the Bible is, by its very nature, ungodly and dangerous. Nowhere in God's Word are believers exhorted or encouraged to seek a second baptism. In fact, the Bible teaches the opposite when It states, "For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free; and have been all made to drink into one Spirit" (I Cor. 12:13). Those who seek a second baptism are in direct conflict with the Word of God. The Scripture states there is but one baptism. Charismatics teach that there are two. The Bible states all are baptized. Charismatics teach that only some are baptized.
One leader within the Calvary Chapel movement, Larry Taylor, writes in the booklet What Calvary Chapel Teaches:
In our services, we focus on a personal relationship with God through worship, prayer, and the teaching of the Word of God. We teach both expositorily and topically. We do not allow speaking in tongues loudly during services, nor prophecy while a Bible study is in progress because we do not believe that the Holy Spirit would interrupt Himself. We have specific "after-glow services" and believer's meetings when these gifts of the Spirit may be exercised.1
Calvary Chapel does not teach nor believe in many of the blatant errors of hyper-Charismatics. Chuck Smith, founder of Calvary Chapel, does not believe that a Christian can be demon-possessed or that a person under the Holy Spirit's influence should be out of control or behave in an undignified manner. He teaches against practices such as " being slain in the spirit, " barking or laughing uncontrollably. Calvary's stance seems sensible and orderly, but this combination of truth and error is what makes these doctrines so seductive and confusing.
Concerning Fundamentalism, Taylor writes:
Fundamentalism is that portion of Protestantism which holds to the literal interpretation of the Scriptures, believing that they are divinely inspired and inerrant. Hence, the "fundamentals" of the faith are emphasized. Although the modem news media and the liberal church scorn fundamentalists as backwards and stupid, the truth is that fundamentalism has preserved the integrity of God's Word and held on to the essential doctrines of the orthodox faith ...1
In this instance, Taylor is correct. Fundamentalism has held and should continue to hold to the fundamentals of the faith. A day does not go by that I do not thank God for strengthening and raising up men and women who refuse to compromise the teachings of Scripture with the philosophies of the world (Col. 2:8).
Taylor then defines Pentecostalism:
Pentecostalism as a modern movement grew out of the Azusa Street revival in Los Angeles at the turn of the 20th century, and spawned denominations that emphasize the fullness of the Holy Spirit and the exercise of spiritual and Scriptural gifts of the Spirit which had fallen dormant in the main line churches.1
Taylor points to the Azusa Street revival as the beginning of the restoration of the "Scriptural gifts of the Spirit." However, neither the gifts of the Holy Spirit nor the Holy Spirit has been dormant for the last 1900 years. Only the revelatory and the miraculous sign gifts "ceased" when the perfect canon of Scripture was completed in the first century (I Cor. 13:8). The Holy Spirit has never left the church (Eph. 1:13-14; Heb. 13:5). It must be noted that the phenomena at Azusa street could not be a true movement of the Holy Spirit, for there were spiritists, hypnotists and many unscriptural activities taking place at the Azusa Street Mission. People who were allegedly under the power of the Holy Spirit were given to fits of laughing and weeping uncontrollably. Many babbled in unintelligible gibberish. Much of the same error and unscriptural activity that took place at Azusa Street is occurring today in places such as Toronto and Pensacola.
Taylor then defines the position of the Calvary Chapel as the following:
Over the years, however, fundamentalism, while it clung to the integrity of God's Word, tended to become rigid, legalistic, and unaccepting of spiritual gifts. Similarly, Pentecostalism became enthusiastic and emotional at the expense of the teaching of God's Word.
Calvary Chapel is the balance between the two. At Calvary Chapel we believe in the gifts of the Holy Spirit mentioned in the Bible, and we encourage their exercise, but always decently and in order, and with the primary emphasis on the Word of God which we look to as our primary rule of faith.1
According to Taylor, then, anyone who believes that the gifts of the foundational Apostolic Period are not for today is "rigid and legalistic." But the Bible teaches at believers are to base their beliefs on Scripture alone as opposed to experience there is nothing "legalistic" about it. Calvary claims to be the balance between those who cling to God's Word and those who put emotionalism and experience in the place of God's Word. This is not balance. Make no mistake about it, Calvary is teaching grave error.
The world teaches us to seek unity and common ground with those who have beliefs different from our own. God's Word teaches us to separate from unscriptural practices. John 8:32 says, And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." We are not instructed to find the "balance" or the "middle ground." Jesus did not say, "know the balance, and the balance shall make you free."
Many people who attend Calvary are either confused or unaware of what Chuck Smith teaches on the issue of "tongues" being for today. I know I was. The following quotes are taken from an article entitled "The Baptism of the Holy Spirit" by Calvary Chapel founder Chuck Smith:
Speaking in tongues is an exercise of faith that is an affront to my intellect. My intellect used to be very important to me. A straight-A average was the most important thing in the world when I was going to school, but God humbled me. I must admit it is very humbling to pray to God in tongues, for you don't understand what you are saying. I must by-pass my intellect to communicate with God in the spirit. I must trust the Holy Spirit to speak to God, instead of my intellect. I must have faith that He knows, much better than I know, what is best for me and how to petition God for it. In order to exercise my faith by speaking in tongues, I must deny that my own intellect is better able to communicate.2
Chuck Smith bases his belief that one must pray in tongues while bypassing his intellect on Romans 8:26 which states, "Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered." This is a misunderstanding and misapplication of this verse. First, it is not we who are praying or making intercession; the verse clearly states that "the Spirit itself maketh intercession." We have nothing to do with His intercession on our behalf. Second, the Holy Spirit makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered." This rules out speaking or groaning out loud in public or in private.
Chuck Smith teaches the same error that extreme Pentecostals and Charismatics use to justify praying in unintelligible gibberish.
Chuck Smith also believes that if an individual doubts that he is speaking in tongues because he has the ability to stop, Satan must be behind it. He writes,
The first hassle you find, the minute you start speaking in an unknown tongue, is that Satan tells you that you're just making it up. When he does you're going to stop just like that. And then he will say, "See, you were making it up, because you can stop." That is exactly what he did to me. But Paul said, "I will pray with the Spirit, and I will pray with understanding." 2
This is the same erroneous teaching that Charismatic seminars promote when training people to speak in tongues. The people giving the seminar encourage the participants to "let their voices go" and to speak out whatever syllables or gibberish is in their head. They are then told not to let the devil deceive them into thinking it is only gibberish and not a genuine Holy Spirit-given "prayer language."
How can such faulty teaching be reconciled with what is clearly stated in God's Word, which says, "For God is not the author of confusion, but of peace, as in all churches of the saints" (I Cor. 14:33)?
No one needed to teach the apostles how to speak in tongues on the day of Pentecost. They did not speak gibberish but, instead, known languages understood both by them as well as those hearing them. They spoke intelligible languages as the "Holy Ghost gave them utterance" (Acts 2:4-1 1). The apostles had no reason to doubt that this was an act of God.
Faith is reasonable, and we must never "bypass" the mind that God has given us. "But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear" (I Pet. 3:15).
Part II in next post.
